Paul Starr

Paul Starr is co-founder and co-editor of the The American Prospect. and professor of sociology and public affairs at Princeton University. A winner of the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction and the Bancroft Prize in American history, he is the author of eight books, including Entrenchment: Wealth, Power, and the Constitution of Democratic Societies, which will be out next year.

Recent Articles

The verdict of the Supreme Court upholding nearly all of the Affordable Care Act is a victory to be savored in the full knowledge that it may be only temporary and includes potentially damaging changes in constitutional interpretation. It is a victory, first of all, for the millions of people excluded from health insurance who stand to gain protection despite their medical history or low incomes. It is a victory for the rule of law in the face of a group of partisan conservative justices who want to immobilize federal power in social policy. It is a victory for the millions of people who have struggled for decades to achieve equal access to health care. And, not least, it is a victory for President Barack Obama and the Democrats in a critical election year. In fact, the outcome of the election will determine the ultimate significance of the Court’s decision. If Mitt Romney and the Republicans win in November, not only will they repeal the main provisions of the Affordable Care Act;...

The following column accompanies a special report in the July-August issue, taking stock of America's progress in fighting poverty on the 50th anniversary of Michael Harrington's The Other America."Ever since the 1960s, many of us have measured progress by how far America has gone in fulfilling the ideals of that era: guaranteeing equal rights, preventing unjust wars, safeguarding the earth, ending poverty. In today’s harsh political climate, the hopes of the ’60s may seem unrealistic, even grandiose, but they remain central to liberal politics. For better or worse, we’re still embroiled in the struggles that exploded in that decade. What is the campaign for same-sex marriage or the recent controversy over women’s reproductive rights if not a continuation of both the civil-rights movement and the sexual revolution of the ’60s? And what is today’s social conservatism if not a backlash against the changes unleashed in that era? The 1960s are a reference point for another reason. The...

(AP Photo/J. David Ake) People wait in line overnight in front of the Supreme Court for tickets on the eve of oral arguments before the court on President Obama's health care legislation, in Washington, Sunday, March 25, 2012. S itting in the Supreme Court on March 27, I was stunned by the oral argument on the Affordable Care Act (ACA). From their first questions to Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, the conservative justices seemed to echo the arguments against the individual mandate that the opposing lawyers had set out in their briefs. When it was over, I was not 100 percent sure that Justice Anthony Kennedy would vote to overturn the mandate and related penalties. But if he does, the Court may well strike down the law’s other critical provisions, staging what amounts to a conservative judicial coup. What then? Three general alternatives stand out for health-care reform. Let’s call them the minimalist bypass, the great mountain highway, and the road through the states. The...

“Creative destruction” is Mitt Romney’s best defense for his career in private equity and the trail of displaced workers some of his ventures left behind. The idea comes from the economist Joseph Schumpeter, who argued that capitalism generates economic growth through “gales of creative destruction” that sweep away obsolete technologies and products. As Romney’s advocates have it, that’s what his firm, Bain Capital, has advanced—painful economic changes that are essential to a rising standard of living. If Romney made his fortune that way, he deserves the praise that some conservatives have lavished on him for contributing to American competitiveness. But that isn’t the whole story. Much of the work of Bain and other private—equity firms has little to do with the kind of wrenching Schumpeterian change that contributes to growth, still less to the job creation for which Romney claims credit. Technological innovation was at the heart of Schumpeter’s vision, and no one today objects to...

T he political center has an undeserved reputation as the home of the most dispassionate and reasonable people. According to a strain of thought that stretches back to the 18th century, parties endanger democracy; partisans see only their side of the truth, pursue their own narrow interests, and aggravate tensions and conflict. The rational course supposedly lies in the middle, where champions of civic virtue counsel compromise and invite us to put the public good first. The anti-partisan story is a seductive myth, and a dangerous one. Those who represent themselves as standing in the center have their own partialities. Many people who call themselves nonpartisan or independent actually lean left or right but for one reason or another resist coming out of the closet as Democrats or Republicans. Some people who tell pollsters that they’re independents don’t follow politics closely or care about it enough to risk taking sides. They’re hardly model citizens. Besides this muddled middle,...